THE FLOWERING OF THE GRASSES. 6r 



neatly on the branch, however, the one large outer calyx- 

 piece overwraps the two small and united inner ones, so 

 that to a casual glance they look like a pair of equal 

 and opposite scales. That satisfactorily accounts for the 

 calyx. 



Next, how about the petals ? Well, if you lift off 

 the two glumes very carefully, you will see beneath them, 

 just outside the stamens and the embryo grain, a couple 

 of very tiny thin transparent leaves. They are almost 

 microscopical in size, no bigger than the dot of an /, and 

 so thin and filmy that they look very much like a midge's 

 wing. So far as I can tell they are of no use at all to 

 the plant as it now stands : they remain there as mere 

 functionless rudiments, apparently on purpose to let us 

 see the essential kinship between the grasses and the 

 lilies. For these are two out of the three original petals, 

 dwarfed almost beyond recognition, but still fairly to be 

 identified by means of intermediate links. As to the 

 third petal, which ought to be within, on the same side 

 as the two calyx-pieces which are united into one, that 

 has disappeared altogether, crushed wholly out of exist- 

 ence between the grain and the calyx. The fact is, the 

 one-sided arrangement of the little flowers on the spike, 

 necessary in order to let their stamens hang out freely 

 to the wind, has distorted all the inner half of the 

 blossoms — much as the habit of lying on one side has 

 distorted and blanched the lower half of the sole or the 

 flounder. But we have numerous intermediate forms 

 still existing which lead us from the true lilies, with 

 their coloured petals, through the wood-rushes, whose 

 petals are thin and brownish, to certain sedges in which 

 they have become mere rudiments, and to the grasses in 



